Page 52 of Loving You Always

He pulled back to hold her eyes, sliding the zipper all the way down and peeling the material over her shoulders and down her sleek arms, rolling it past the subtle dip of her waist and hips, past the rounded cheeks of her ass and down the tanned length of her legs.

Worth every penny. The Carine Gilson lingerie looked like it had been painted onto her body. He’d chosen the nude-colored sheer bra knowing that tonight he’d see her nipples pressing against the transparent fabric like ripe berries. Chosen the thong knowing he’d run his palms along the smooth, naked curves left completely exposed. Envisioned the dress pooling at her feet. What he hadn’t imagined was the sweet color flushing her cheeks, or the way she looked at the floor and pulled her dark hair forward to cover her breasts. The way her breath stuttered in her chest or how she bit the corner of her mouth while she waited for him to say something.

He pushed the hair back over her shoulders and slid one hand behind her head, caressing with his thumb the soft hairs curling at her neck.

“No dream, no fantasy of you standing like this here in front of me could have prepared me for how beautiful you are, Kerris. You steal my breath.”

He pulled her small hands to his chest, the truth of his words banging a frantic rhythm beneath his shirt because of her. It always had. He would spend the rest of his life making sure she believed him.

He would never ask her about the intimacy she had shared with Cam. It would be too much for him, and would ruin any chance, if there was still one, of them repairing their friendship. On one hand, he wasn’t sure he even wanted Cam’s friendship anymore. On the other, he wasn’t sure that he deserved it. He knew how TJ had hurt Kerris and he knew Cam was the only man she had ever been with. Walsh knew that he himself would be her last lover. That was all that mattered anymore.

He dipped his head and licked the bow of her top lip, diving into her mouth, bobbing for her tongue. Tangling their lips and tongues in an intercourse between their mouths that left him heated and hard. Measuring their steps in inches, he guided her toward the bed he’d chosen for this room. For this night. When her knees hit the edge, he lowered her to the bed, stepping back to stare at the length of her body, blemished only by the few scars remaining from her accident, but still perfect to him. Would he be able to do this? Touch her? Taste her without taking her fully? Without finally coming home inside of her? He had lived without any of her for so long, but he could and he would control himself.

And he would enjoy every minute of it.

He knelt at the edge of the bed, and she came up on her elbows to watch him. He removed her shoes, taking one small foot in his hand. He kissed the high arch, licking at the fragile bone of her ankle. He ran his nose along the length of her calf until he reached her knee. He snared her eyes as he sucked behind her knee, grinning when her eyelids dropped and her elbows collapsed under her until she lay flat against the bed’s silk duvet. He repeated the same ministrations with the other foot, loving her ankle, calf, and knee. He breathed kisses over her inner thighs until he reached her center, concealed by only a small triangle of silk.

He had to have some of her. He mouthed the hot, wet flesh through her panties, moaning at the taste of her exploding on his tongue. She arched off the bed, gripping his head and rolling her hips into the searching hunger of his mouth. He slid his hand up the silky skin of her waist until he reached her bra, pulling the fragile cup down and dusting his fingers across her nipple, so hard and tight. He lost himself in devouring her, loving her until she went completely still for a few moments, like she was absorbing every sensation. Then she cried out, splitting the quiet of the room down the middle with a dry sob that shook her shoulders and hoarsened her voice. Walsh pressed his face into the tremor of her thighs on either side of him, relishing the shake and shudder of her body surrendering to the first orgasm he had ever given her.

But certainly not the last.

Chapter Seventeen

Kerris woke up with Walsh’s name on her lips. As vigilant as she had always been, careful in what she said and did, her dreams showed no such caution. Her dreams had always been wild horses. Charging past her inhibitions and morals, giving in to the desires she’d always checked when awake.

“I love that you say my name in your sleep.”

Kerris panicked for a moment. Walsh was in her bed! She was used to waking up with his name on her lips and a guilty ache in her heart. Bed empty. Hope sagging. Frustrated and a little horny. Instead she felt sated, limbs weighted with leftover pleasure. Her sleep-fuzzed brain cleared second by second until last night snapped into focus. She had come more than once. And so had he, but they hadn’t crossed that line. It was a technicality, one most people wouldn’t care about, but one she clung to. One she needed.

She pushed back against the warm wall of muscle at her back. Walsh’s hands wandered, lifting the gown he’d given her to wear last night, running his hands along her stomach and between her breasts until he reached the orchid charm she’d worn to bed. She turned over, and it was surreal to see Walsh’s broad shoulders, the muscles stacked in his stomach, his dark green eyes and bed-rumpled hair, first thing in the morning.

“Did I say your name?” Kerris pulled her brows together and pushed her lips to one side. “Are you sure?”

“Oh, I’m sure that after last night I recognize my name on your lips.”

Kerris’s mouth rounded into an “o” and she buried her face in his shoulder.

“Walsh, good grief.”

“Are you embarrassed?” He chuckled, nudging her shoulders until she was pressed back against the Egyptian cotton sheets and he was propped on his elbows, hovering over her. “I think I said your name a time or two myself.”

“I just…this situation will take some getting used to. That’s all.”

“Am I a situation?” He breathed the words against her neck, tracking his lips up to draw her earlobe between his lips, between his teeth.

Embarrassment withered and died as desire, hot and urgent, came alive. Kerris turned her head, intercepting his mouth, moaning into the kiss as his hands pushed the silk gown up over her hips. A strident ringing stilled them both, lips pressed together, Walsh hard between her thighs. He dropped his forehead to hers, huffing a frustrated breath.

“That’s my dad’s ring tone.”

Kerris tapped his shoulder for him to move.

“Get it! I will not be responsible for—”

He covered her open mouth with his, gripping her hip and grinding into her, taking her breath and every thought hostage.

“It’s totally your fault,” he whispered against her lips. He rolled over to sit on the side of the bed and grabbed his phone from the bedside table. “Hey, Dad.”

Kerris eyed the tanned, muscled terrain of Walsh’s back, tapering to his hips and butt. If she had thought of herself as a frozen river at one time, she was anything but now. She was a hot spring, rising and steaming and gushing every time she was around this man.

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